Where does your work actually count?

That was the question I put to the NCACE Lightbox cohort at Senate House this week, closing an expertly curated line-up I was very pleased to be part of.

The instinct in our field is to reach for the big platform. But the work that shifts something often lands at a scale no one is counting. A conversation over a bowl of soup. One decision, in one council department. I offered a frame of three registers, the ground, the institution and the system, and the argument that impact sits not in any one of them but in how you connect them.

What made the day was the cohort: carefully assembled, generous with each other, and willing to turn a hard question on their own live work. Everyone left with one move to make that work more visible where it counts.

It was also my first proper look inside Senate House. Imposing from the street, and quietly magnificent within, listed ceilings and small touches from another era in the corners. Fitting, for a day spent talking about understories and the things you only see when you go looking.

Thank you to Evelyn Wilson, Dr Mai Musie and the NCACE team.

So: what is the one place your work already counts that you have not been counting?

#Lightbox #KnowledgeExchange #Placemaking #Impact